Just a Story
by GreenCalenWen
Summary: RentFic attempt at an alternative rogerapril story. 12106: wow...first update in over a year. roger and april sort a few things out...
1. Yesterday

A/N: well it's been over a year since I've even looked at this story. Not much of an excuse except that a lot has happened since. But, with the release of the movie version of RENT, I was reminded of it, and thought I'd revise and add more. Hopefully now that there's a movie, RENT has a little more of a fanbase

JUST A STORY

INTRO RIFF: YESTERDAY

_Yesterday_

_All my troubles seemed so far away_

_Now it looks as though they're here to stay_

_Oh I believe in yesterday._

_"Yesterday" - McCartney_

It wasn't a love story. Far from it. It wasn't a romance novel or even a fucking fairy tale. Nope, not Cinderella, nor Sleeping Beauty, not even Beauty and the Beast...though that last one is probably closest of all.

It was just us. No matter what she told me. And now it's not even that. Time and an eternity have passed since then. I'm sitting here beside a sickeningly new gravestone, shivering despite the heat and my sweatshirt. Not that kind of shiver... My head is resting on my hands; I can feel my pulse, weak but definite, a shitty reminder of life. Everything seems mixed up, in a haze, yet I'm more here than I have been in about eight months. Eight months, a week, a fucking century, they're all the same. They've all kept me high...till now. Now, I'm all alone to pick up the pieces.

Everything-the calendar, Mark-says that it's been about nine months since I met her. Sounds about right. It was autumn, I know because she told me she loved the leaves, and since now its summer...

It's fitting somehow. Nine months...she always had this saying. Good things come in threes, but bad things come in nines. She said since nine is three threes, the goodness all just cancels out, and you're left with the bad. It all had some sort of superstitious sense to it, I guess, but perhaps it was just the drugs…

She lied to me though. The note that she left, scribbled in her neat handwriting on the back of a receipt and taped to the bathroom mirror, held only three small words on it, yet brought all the fucking bad in the world crashing down on me.

Those weren't the words she left with, though. That morning, as my body still succumbed to the false reality, she left saying what she always said, trying to get me to write songs again I suppose: "It's a story. Write it."

And for the first time in the past nine months, I'll listen to her.

END INTRO RIFF


	2. Every me every you

hey okay, part 2! Thanks for all (3) of you who reviewed the intro. And sorry it took me awhile to get this up. Well, I don't own anyone, of course, they are Jonathon Larson's! and the song is placebo's. well, enjoy! And please r/r! Thanks

VERSE I

EVERY ME EVERY YOU

"_Carve your name into my arm_

_Instead of stressed I lie here charmed_

_'cause there's nothing else to do_

_every me every you."_

_"Every me Every you" -Placebo_

It was just Mark, Collins, and me living in the loft at the time. We split the rent three ways; Mark earned his share by selling his documentaries, Collins did a number of odd jobs anywhere he could (usually some techno-genie shit), and I played the clubs.

I was with the Rentboys back then. The guitarist and lead vocalist. I know I was, because that's how we met, April and I. It shouldn't have been anything strange. A gig, a club, a bar...a dark room clouded with smoke and crowded with ash-coloured people taking deep hits from ash-coloured cigarettes; The ever present drone of absent chatter and bottles clinking; the mosh pit in the front where fans either truly or feigning excitement shouted nearly as loud as I did. It was the same wherever we went. So why did it seem like I needed it so bad?

That night was different though. You know the feeling? Something repetitive, everything may be going all the fucking same, yet there was a crazy static charge to the air. It was at CBGBs. We played through the same set, my throat had gotten the same scratchiness as it always does, singing in a smoky club. The crowd seemed more excited that night, though, slamming to the music. In the hype of the moment as the last song ended, I leapt off the stage into the closely-knit people slamming and head banging in the mosh pit. I could feel the hands passing me down the line like a joint, as the last note screeched into the mic. Right as it ended, though, my eyes met those of a girl, and the world stopped. I know what a cliche that is, but it's true. The crowd was in the moment of reverence after a song ends and right before they start screaming. The band had silenced their instruments, and the moshers held me still. It was static. It was electric.

And suddenly the place exploded in noise, and I floated back to the stage. The band was screaming back at the crowd, rousing them up as they left the stage. I put the mic back in the stand, all the while scanning the haze for that girl. She was nowhere.

After we had cleaned up, the band split up. I made my way out the back exit, shivering in surprise at the crispness of the fall night. It had been a good show. The audience seemed to like us, and I liked the club. Plus there had been that girl...

I rubbed my hands together, trying to warm them. My gloves had no fingertips on them. It helped warm my hands when smoking and playing the guitar, but for anything else they were useless. I was rarely found without one or the other though, so…I blew on my bare fingertips and took out a cigarette. Fiddling around for my matches, I realized I had used up the pack this morning.

"Shit!" I muttered, about to take the cigarette out of my mouth. Just then though, I heard a click, and saw a hand holding a lighter to the cig.

"Need a light?" Following the arm down I saw her. The girl. I held my breath, in spite of myself. She wasn't beautiful, bleached blond hair cut sloppy and shorter in back, brown, wide-set eyes, round face. And short, nearly half a foot shorter than me, and I'm not that tall myself. Still...

I looked back to the cigarette I still had in my mouth, the lighter she still held in her hand. She lit it, and I breathed in the welcome smoke.

"Thanks," I said, unsure of what to do. She nodded.

"Those things will kill you someday, you know," she said bluntly, putting the lighter back in her pocket. I looked at her in disbelief and the hair on the back of my neck bristled in automatic defense. The girl who had just lit the thing telling me off for smoking them? Searching her face, I saw no hint of sarcasm, though.

"Well something will eventually," I finally replied.

"Hmm." She grinned, a kind of ironic, half smile. "I'm April." She held out her hand. I felt my muscles relax a bit.

"Roger."

She nodded acknowledgement, and started walking off. I just stood there, bewildered, watching her back slowly recede. She had a strangely confident air around her, and for the first time in my life, I found myself scared of a girl.

Just then though, she stopped and turned around. "Coming?" she asked defiantly. I took a drag and hurried to catch up.

END VERSE I


	3. Losing a Whole Year

~*~Hey! Sorry its taken me a load of time to get this out, just been too busy with school and...stuff. well here is part 3. It's a long one. I'm sorry if it drags on, but it says things that need to be said. Again, disclaiming everyone and everything. Please r/r! thank you ~*~  
  
VERSE II   
  
LOSING A WHOLE YEAR  
  
I remember you and me used to spend  
the whole goddamn day in bed  
Lying in your room we lay like dogs  
The phone would ring like a joke that's left unsaid  
"Losing a Whole Year" -Third Eye Blind  
  
That night sparked the flame. I woke up the next morning, my head stinging from a slight hangover, and opened my eyes as soon as they adjusted to the light streaming in from half-opened shades. I still remember my first thought-the ceiling's different. I must still be drunk, I thought. The ceiling back at the loft was old and spattered with mildew, but it was fucking mahogany polished wood panels and marble compared to this one. Dirty white paint was pealing in strips, huge mildew puddles (can you call them puddles on a ceiling?) clung to the remaining paint. I could swear I even saw fuzzy mold in some spots. Had our ceiling really gotten this bad and I, nor any of my nit-pick, obsessive compulsive, clean freak roommates just hadn't noticed it? What happened last night?  
  
I was pondering this dilemma when a girlish moan and my name came from a voice beside me. Looking over, I saw April, on her side beneath the covers. Through the haze of the hangover, and the brightness shining in right behind her, she looked like an angel. Stop it Davis, you're going soft, I silently scolded myself. But I couldn't stop. The glow of the window put an aura around her, and glowed on her pale skin. Her white-blond hair formed a shaggy halo about her head, and black eyeliner was smudged under her eyes. She had one of the white sheets pulled over her, but instead of covering, it only emphasized her shape, which, to me, was perfect. She smiled.  
  
"Thank you," she half-moaned, half-sighed, leaning over and kissing me gently on the neck. She stood up, wrapped the sheet around her, and looked out the window.  
  
"Did I-I mean did we-did this really happen?" I asked, weakly, well aware of how lame it sounded. Being accustomed to the life of a (unknown, unsuccessful) rock star, I had had many a morning having no idea where I was. But until now, there had been no girl still left in the bed when I woke up.  
  
"Of course," she grinned again, looking back at me. The light coming from the window threw her face in shadow, but I could still tell she was smiling. It hurt my eyes to watch her. "Want some coffee?"  
  
She meandered out the bedroom door, still wearing the sheet, into what I assumed to be a kitchen of sorts, and I heard the running of water and opening of drawers. I shook my head and try to sort things out. My head still hurt from the hangover, and my eyes were throbbing from the light pouring in. There was a beautiful naked girl in the next room, wearing only a sheet and making coffee for me. And apparently I had just made love to this naked girl...  
  
I reached right away for my jacket, the black leather smelling that comforting, familiar aroma of sweat and smoke, and pulled out the pack of cigarettes from the front pocket. Sticking one in my mouth, I looked for matches, before realizing with an ironic grin that it was the lack of them that had brought me here in the first place. I stuck the cig behind my ear, pulled on my jeans, and shuffled myself out to the kitchen.   
  
April was sitting on the counter, the sheet tucked in around her like a strapless dress. She had a coffee pot next to her, and was waiting as the black caffeine slowly dripped into the pot. When I came in, she looked up and smiled.   
  
"Got a light?" I asked. She pointed to the drawer right next to the refridgerater. I took a book out of it, but as I was about to tear one out, I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me sideways. I ended in front of April, her hands on my back and her legs straddling my hips.   
  
"What do you need this for?" she said seductively, leaning closer to me. She was inches from me; I could smell her shampoo. She took the cigarette from my ear. "You've got me."  
  
She was practically purring in my face, her hands moving lightly on my back. I could feel myself getting warm, getting hard. We kissed, lightly, but getting harder and harder, my hands running through her hair, hers moving towards my ass. Her lips tasted like peppermint and...something fruity. I pulled her as close as I could to me, feeling her breasts rise and fall against my bare chest, even through the sheet around her, her warmth and mine fading together. It was here, it was now, it was perfect, I thought of nothing else, no one else, matches, nicotine, clubs, and...  
  
A shrill beep interrupted us, sounding loudly through the kitchen and pounding on my still buzzed ears. We broke apart, stared at the coffee maker, and laughed.   
  
"You've got a timer on it?" I asked weakly above the noise.  
  
"Yeah, I've blown up the glass on two coffee makers by keeping it too hot," she replied, getting out two mismatched mugs from a cupboard drawer. "This way I don't forget it." She grinned crookedly.  
  
She handed me a cup, and I watched the steam raise up from the black liquid. I remembered how neither Mark nor I liked coffee that hot, so we'd have contests to see whose mug would stop steaming first by blowing into it. I know it was childish, but...  
  
"Oh my God!" I suddenly exclaimed. I slammed the cup down on the counter and raced back to the bedroom.  
  
"What's the matter?" April asked, following me into the room.   
  
"Mark-my roommate-he's going to be worried. I was supposed to bring groceries home yesterday. God he's gonna murder me." I pulled on my shirt, slipped on my shoes, grabbed my jacket and started heading out the door. April blocked my way though.   
  
"Will I see you?" she asked. She looked...sad almost. I relaxed a bit. Fishing around for a pen, I wrote my number on her hand.   
  
"Call me," I said, smiling and kissing her quickly. I walked out the door and pulled on my jacket. Pulling out another cigarette, and lighting it with the matches I had stuffed in my pocket, I walked home.  
  
END VERSE II 


	4. Come Around

A/N: Don't own it, don't sue me

VERSE III  
COME AROUND

"_I'm dressed all in blue  
and I'm remembering you  
and the dress you wore  
when you broke my heart"  
-- "Come Around" – Rhett Miller_

She slipped quietly out of my life for awhile after that...I got home that morning, shuffling sheepishly into the small living room/kitchen, and placed the two crumpled grocery bags, one filled Marlboros, milk, and bread, the other with a couple bottles each of Milwaukee's Best, Absolut Vodka, Bailey's Irish Cream, and Marlot (just the basics obviously), on the table in reconciliation. Mark just glared at me briefly, then went on, all out, about responsibility, what it means to share an apartment, to share responsibilities, even suggesting giving me a curfew. I bet he was about to put a fucking tracker on me, when, suddenly, from his bedroom, came a very feminine, very seductive voice cooing, "Marky!" I cocked an eyebrow at Mark. He grinned, and turned bright red, even the lenses in his glasses were blushing.

And so things were forgiven between us, and time moved on. Mark fell head over heals for this girl (who's name I later learned was Maureen), and I continued doing shows. Always without April. I realized early on that, in my daze of the morning, I'd forgotten to get her phone number, and so I never called her. Well she never called me either. So...

In mid-October though, it all changed. The Rentboys had just played another gig at the Hole. Steve, the drummer, was having his typical after show chill at his flat. He always did that. I went sometimes, but it was always the same, sexdrugsrocknroll and all that, and there was only so much of that I could stand in a night. That night, however, I was feeling pretty lonely. Collins had gone up to do some interview at Brown, and Maureen had taken Mark hostage to some unknown place for the weekend. So I went to Steve's.

It was just like it always was, the big room of his flat opaque with smoke, smelling of booze, and filled with glazed eye rockers and groupies. Steve saw me come in, and waved me over to where he and a few others were sprawled out, taking the joint out of his mouth to call "Rog you made it!"

After a few hits and a couple beers, I was feeling comfortably numb. I just sat against Steve's couch, rather enjoying my blank-minded high, and just taking in everything around me. Steve and some girl were necking it next to me. Well Steve was smoking another joint as the girl chewed on his neck ravenously. Some burnout had brought some coke, and I saw a coven of people taking turns snorting up the white line, closing their eyes briefly, then opening them, star-laced and millions of miles away, turning from lost children to kings and queens of the universe before my eyes. Some stoner was laying with his head on his guitar, saying ever so often, "I can feel it, the music." I wondered later if he realized he wasn't even playing a damn thing.

But some where in the corner of my smoke-packed mind came the tugging feeling that someone was watching me Using every ounce of strength I had left (getting stoned is exhausting), I looked around. Whether it was the smoke floating in the air, or just the smoke in my eyes, I must have looked over this one spot of the room about a dozen times. Seems fitting I shouldn't see it, since it was about 2 feet in front of me. However, this last time I looked over it, my eyes stopped. There was a couple sitting in one of those plush La-Z-Boy recliners. More specifically he was sitting in it and she was sitting on his lap. He was obviously baked, stupidly nibbling on her earlobe while she packed a glass bowl expertly. His hands were up her shirt, stretching the thin cotton to twice its normal size. The funny thing was, she seemed perfectly straight. Her hands moved fluidly, not sloppy or even slow, like you would expect. Plus, looking at her face, I saw that she was staring back at me, and her dark brown eyes were perfectly normal.

Brown eyed girl...it was only then that it hit me. Though she seemed different somehow from the last I'd seen her—not sure how; thinner perhaps, or maybe just tired—but it was still her. Same straggly bleached blond hair, just a little longer, still falling in her eyes despite the ponytail holder in back. Same curves, visible even beneath the faded teeshirt and groping hands. It was April.

"Hey," she said, her voice sounding slightly shy, but still angelic, at least to me. She handed the bowl to the guy, but I knew she was addressing me.

"Hey," I replied, well aware of how raspy and ugly my voice sounded compared to hers. Then, nodding to the baker beneath her, "Who's he?"

"Um, his name is Stan," she said looking uncomfortable. "He…kind of lives with me."

That surprised me, than angered me. "So you obviously only go anti-drugs to your one-night stands."

"Roger—"

"No it's okay," the drugs were talking now, giving me a newfound confidence and unexpected fluidity of speech. "I'm sure the resin just covered up my phone number on your hand. Happens all the time."

As if he had ironically needed another hit to realize what was happening around him, _Stan_ chose that moment to break in. "This man bothering you doll?"

"No, don't bother," I answered for her. "I was just leaving."

No longer feeling stoned still, I got up, cold look on my face, not letting the wounded look on April's face register in my brain. I didn't know what the purpose had been in getting up, I just couldn't stand being in the same room as April and that stoner. Especially since, no matter how I tried to ignore it, her eyes just looked so…sad…I went into the next room, and just stood there, blankly. Someone handed me a joint. I took a puff, unconscious really of what I was doing. In my mind a slurred male voice registered.

"Hey man, want some?"

Looking to where the voice had come from, I saw a group of people sprawled out around a table. On the table was a mirror. On the mirror were lines of coke.

Coming over to the table and kneeling down, I took the straw he had given me (really just a rolled up dollar bill), held it to a line, and snorted.

My eyes closed involuntarily, but when they opened, it was as if it'd opened a lid on one of those prankster cans of nuts, when all the snakes spring out. A fountain of emotions gushed its way through me, up my spine, finally cascading through the top of my head. It was as if the whole evening, my whole life even, up to that moment, had never existed. My mind exploded, all thoughts of April evaporated. And I thought, "This is it."

I moved aside to let the other cokeheads get their lines, and moved up to an unoccupied bong instead. There was a baggie of weed laying beside it, and I just packed and packed, taking hit after hit. I was getting higher and higher, I kept on taking more hits, packing more bowls because I honestly couldn't remember having had one 2 minutes earlier. I had a few more lines of coke, bowl after bowl of weed, more more more, let April live with that fucker, higher higher higher, till I was so stoned I couldn't even lift my arms to pack another.

Blackout.

END VERSE III.


	5. I Know

VERSE IV

I KNOW

"_You've got such a pretty smile_

_It's a shame the things you hide behind it_

_Let them go, give it up for awhile_

_Let them free and we will both go find it"_

_-- "I know" - Jude_

The aroma of coffee filled my nose and my mind before I was even aware I was conscious. I involuntarily took several deep breaths, not knowing why, not knowing how, not really knowing where or what I was, until…

A shrill beep resounded through my head, forcing me awake, fucking tearing out my eardrums. Once it was established that I was in full consciousness, all my senses turned against me. Bright light streamed in from between the cracks on the old blinds haphazardly covering a window across from me. The gentle coffee aroma strengthened into a sickening, overpowering smell. Dizzying confusion overcame me as I looked around and saw no familiar furniture; hell, little furniture at all, just the scruffy couch I was on and a coffee table with three legs. And the sound…

The offending beep was soon joined by the heavy thumps of footsteps. I could hear the unmistakable sound of muffled expletives getting closer, and in a few seconds, a blur of a figure came running into the room, clutching a towel to their head, and leaving a trail of water in their wake. Soon both noises ceased.

As my eyes focused a little better, I made out the image of a short girl dressed in two towels—the previously mentioned over her hair, and one covering the rest of her. It didn't cover much, though, and for a second, I couldn't help but eye the wet figure underneath…before the pain in my head forced its way behind my eyes, and I closed them with a loud "Fuck!"

When I reopened them, the blonde—April, of course—was holding out a steaming mug of coffee below my nose.

"I made you some coffee," she said quietly.

"Yeah, I heard," I said, as coldly as I could with the blaring pain in my head. I took the mug graciously though.

"I'll be right back," She said, a little warily, before getting up and going back through the door I knew led to the bedroom.

I looked around. I realized that both times I had woken up here, I had been nursing a hangover—this one was much worse, though, and I didn't have the warmth of sex veiling my eyes. Why had she brought me here? I assumed she had brought me here, what other fucking person would lead me to this hell-hole…though, looking at the window with the shadows of the top-most branches showing through, I couldn't imagine how she'd managed to haul my ass up those stairs.

Oh yeah. That fucking stoner. _Stan_.

When April returned, she had dressed, and her wet hair hung limply at her shoulders. She gingerly sat down on the coffee table, careful to balance her weight against the missing leg. Our eyes met, and I was struck again by how sad the brown in her eyes were. They were the same color, but seemed liquid, as though too many tears had filled them, and not had the chance to escape. Well fuck her, what the hell did she have to be sad about?

"Do you feel any better?" She asked at last.

"Where's Stan?" I snapped, wanting to get to the point. "Or better yet, who's Stan? Well I guess I can answer that. He's the fucker, he's the reason you never called me. Tell me April, do you pride yourself on being a hypocrite? Or were YOU just too stoned that night to realize I wasn't Sta-"

"He's my fucking landlord, alright?" She yelled. "I work at a café, but that hardly makes enough to buy groceries, much less rent, and electricity, and water. Stan and I, we—we have an agreement…"

She broke off, and darted her eyes down. I saw her shoulders shake a little, but when she finally looked back up, her eyes were still dry.

"The day you left," She started again, her voice much quieter now, "my rent was due. I didn't have the money, so I went to go see Stan. I knew he'd…well that he thought I was hot, so I figured if I flirted with him, he might give me an extension, or something. Only…he really didn't respond to just flirting…"

"So you fucked him for rent," I spat. I wasn't really angry anymore. But my insides were tearing up inside. My head fucking hurt. And, above all, I was jealous.

"Look, I'm not proud of it," she said coldly. "But I've got nothing else to do. The past month has been shit. But what am I supposed to do? I've gotta live!"

"Well come live with us for Christ's sake!" I blurted out.

I didn't know why I'd said it. I honestly hadn't been meaning to, and God knows what Mark and the others would think. But once the idea was out, I knew it was the only thing I wanted. April gave me a funny look.

"Live with you?" She said, slightly suspiciously. "For how long?"

"As long as you want, hell I don't care," I mumbled. "Look, all I know, is, when I saw you with that fucker last night, I was jealous." I could feel the blood rising to my face. What was getting into me? "I've never been jealous before. I'd never felt that way before, and…" Well here went my entire rockstar front, "…and I was scared."

April looked at me for a long time. My head was still slightly throbbing, but the coffee and the conversation had sobered me up tremendously.

Finally she got up off the coffee table, and wiped her hands on her pants. "Well, I'd better go get my stuff."

I grinned. "Need help hauling this furniture down?"

She glanced at me, and finally I saw a glimpse of that spark she used to have. "Hell, they don't even belong to me. This was Stan's idea of a 'furnished apartment.'"

I felt a weight being lifted from me, but it didn't last long. As she walked past the kitchen counter, she grabbed something from the top. She turned to me, cigarette sticking out of her mouth.

"Got a light?"

END: VERSE IV


End file.
